Faithful Reason
I wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge of witty inventions.
~Proverbs 8:12
The Sacred Compass
The quote that begins this next chapter in our religious saga is a fine example of something good from the Bible. The entire eighth chapter of Proverbs is a poem dedicated to wisdom, personified as a woman no less. It’s useful to begin here because if we are looking for a solution to the great problem of our time we must see wisdom as the path to it. If wisdom seeks a witty invention, it need look no further than organised religion, of course. But to know isn’t enough. The tireless thinkers of our time who eviscerate religion’s many layers of deceit do knowledge a great service. But we also need to know what to do with this knowledge.
Earlier we discussed how preventing religious indoctrination from a young age could benefit our society. We shouldn’t want children to have the burdens of centuries worth of hatred and superstition foisted on them so young anymore than we would want them to be drilled with dialectical materialism and conflict theory. Indeed, think about it this way. Many modern economists would say every person educated in economics in Soviet Russia was done a huge disservice because Communism was the only viable economic principle taught, and capitalism was rendered with distortion. This is absolutely true- the students *were* done a grave disservice. Communism’s teaching of Marxist-Leninism and only that was no more moral than what Christian Creationists are now doing in our schools.
I find it endlessly ironic how much right-wing Christians have in common with Communists, a group that was once their most hated enemy (mostly for being godless). But what else can be done? Surely religion can’t be extricated entirely. What about culture? What about their heritage?
The Quiet Menorah
Over the course of this summer I held a job working at the office of a very interesting bunch of people, a Hebrew School run by Congregation B’nai Jeshurun. These were not just any Jews either. What struck me most were posts on their bulletin board, which I scanned while I waited for my interview, advertising why the congregation’s commitment to human rights included fighting for gay marriage. A huge emphasis was placed on Biblical passages that advocated a love of one’s neighbour.
The office was your typical, staid, new-management style place, but a lot of the people were certainly convivial and fun. The woman who sat across from me, a rabbi in training (yes, a woman, woo!), spoke casually about the Israeli settlers in the West Bank as being “crazy.” The office’s executive accountant was a Hispanic woman, and I was hardly the only other minority there, the inclusiveness felt real. Indeed, at every turn this congregation sought to challenge my very conception of religion. I found myself asking: Could this be our future?
Indeed it can.
But doesn’t the school’s very focus contradict what I said in my last article? Not exactly. Here’s the rub, and the compromise (which we surely need). A lot of the children attended integrated, non-sectarian public and private schools. The Hebrew School was an extracurricular. Indeed, the name is very literal. The primary focus of the school is to teach the Hebrew language along with a few cultural traditions. The instruction is not intended to be explicitly religious. Although the parents do, regrettably, talk about raising their children Jewish and so forth, it was still a very encouraging thing that the Congregation was doing.
Indeed, it is far more likely that a lot of these children will grow up and be Jewish only in a cultural sense and not be overly devout (but pray they are less arrogant than their parents, please). They will, from a young age, have already been exposed to other cultures and ways of life. The solution presented by the B’nai Jeshurun School is not a perfect one, but it serves a brilliant example of a halfway house that can moderate religious faith into something that remains beautiful and cannot be perverted. The preservation of culture is paramount, and such schools are an excellent way to do so.
But you don’t need religion to keep the culture either.
Gotta Have Reason
What B’nai Jeshurun and other similar liberal groups (in any faith) do is pick and choose what speaks to them from their holy books. At the head of this article you saw that I, from the midst of the hellish and vindictive Old Testament, plucked a flower of reason, after all. The rabbis of the congregation did the same, and are outright ignoring the minimal but clearly existent injunctions against homosexuality in the Old Testament. On what basis did they choose to do so?
This is where we come to a very important issue with solving religion: Knowing where our morality comes from.
When a liberal or moderate (or even sensible conservative) Christian group picks and chooses from the Bible they are clearly not *basing* their morality on the Bible. The Bible is chaotic, inconsistent, and written in countless hands- it makes sense to look at it as a toolbox rather than a single, irreducible entity. But *how* do you come to that conclusion? Obviously our morality, even the morality of those who call themselves religious, does not spring from the “Good Book.” The criteria by which we judge the Bible is independent of it.
There is indeed a ‘milk o’ human kindness,’ as Shakespeare would have it. There are, of course, flashes of it in the Holy Bible, many of them in red text. Look at the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus was light years ahead of his time and much of what he preached then would be a firm basis for liberal morality in 2007. Where does it come from? The answer is far more inspiring than religion would have it.
It really does come from you and I. Our conscience, our guilt, our compassion.
As I was walking up to my front door this afternoon I caused some cats hiding behind a bush to scatter. It was a mother and her four kittens, all homeless as the cats in my neighbourhood are. She waited for each of her kittens to round the corner and stood staring at me, ready to pounce at a moments notice if I tried to attack. I didn’t, of course. I smiled as I saw the feline family and thought of the mother protecting her little kittens from big ol’ me. I felt all gooey and silently wished them well.
God didn’t do that, nor did what I’ve read of the Bible. We all feel those flashes of compassion, emotion, and sympathy. It *is* innate. What matters is if we allow the world to beat it out of us or not, and given how cynically religion has been used, I do sincerely doubt its power as a shield from even that. If anything, radical religion debases the goodness of the human spirit.
Our sacred compass, that which guides our morality, is often rigged by religion to only point one way, no matter where you are. A real compass’ needle always points to the North, but it most definitely turns on its axis and follows the true north. That is Human morality. It is flexible, understanding, and a morality that compels us to judge each situation clearly and on its own merits. Wisdom seeks Her witty inventions in all things, she does not judge from the outset and act. Wisdom unsticks the needle of our sacred compass so that it can do its job once more.
“Believe in God, not Man!”
Is all of this to say that Humans are so great that we only need ourselves? That if only we all did what I said the world would be perfect because we’re just that awesome? Absolutely not. As a collective we are still pretty fucked up and likely always will be- hey, at least I’m honest! The reality is not about placing your *faith* in Humanity, it’s about trusting yourself to reason things out without the narrow spyglass of someone else’s mythology. For all the evil we as Humans do, there is much good as well, and in broadening our perspective we must all see where it comes from.
Belief in religion is not needed for morality, and if anything a morality divorced from religion is a much more pure and fulfilling one. We all need guidance, of course. I get plenty from people I trust, as I’m sure many of you do. Those people would still be there to help me in their infinite kindness and patience whether the Catholic Church or Islam existed or not. My tirades against the organised and established religions of the world- the religions that abjure condoms or burn embassies because of Danish cartoons- are not an appeal to put a religious faith in Humanity. That just shifts the problem of misguided absolutism. But where a little faith wouldn’t hurt is faith in the goodness that resides in us all, and surely there are many religious thinkers that would not disagree with me there. Martin Luther King certainly wouldn’t; in his treatise on loving one’s enemies he goes to great pains to suggest that the battle of good and evil takes place in each of us, rather than on some grand battlefield in the ‘real world.’
This is nearer to the truth of all things. What good there is in the world is in us all, and what evil there is also resides in us. Humanity is certainly nothing to worship. Yet we find people in this life to love anyway- does that not mean something?
A collective understanding of that would decrease the value of religion further. Too often the choice is posited between Man and God, but I would contend it’s not that simple. For one thing, there are women. Secondly, what about worshipping nothing at all in particular? There’s a lot that is good out there.
Perhaps an important personal first step in leaving religion behind is realising you want to go find that good. Follow your compass.
~Proverbs 8:12
The Sacred Compass
The quote that begins this next chapter in our religious saga is a fine example of something good from the Bible. The entire eighth chapter of Proverbs is a poem dedicated to wisdom, personified as a woman no less. It’s useful to begin here because if we are looking for a solution to the great problem of our time we must see wisdom as the path to it. If wisdom seeks a witty invention, it need look no further than organised religion, of course. But to know isn’t enough. The tireless thinkers of our time who eviscerate religion’s many layers of deceit do knowledge a great service. But we also need to know what to do with this knowledge.
Earlier we discussed how preventing religious indoctrination from a young age could benefit our society. We shouldn’t want children to have the burdens of centuries worth of hatred and superstition foisted on them so young anymore than we would want them to be drilled with dialectical materialism and conflict theory. Indeed, think about it this way. Many modern economists would say every person educated in economics in Soviet Russia was done a huge disservice because Communism was the only viable economic principle taught, and capitalism was rendered with distortion. This is absolutely true- the students *were* done a grave disservice. Communism’s teaching of Marxist-Leninism and only that was no more moral than what Christian Creationists are now doing in our schools.
I find it endlessly ironic how much right-wing Christians have in common with Communists, a group that was once their most hated enemy (mostly for being godless). But what else can be done? Surely religion can’t be extricated entirely. What about culture? What about their heritage?
The Quiet Menorah
Over the course of this summer I held a job working at the office of a very interesting bunch of people, a Hebrew School run by Congregation B’nai Jeshurun. These were not just any Jews either. What struck me most were posts on their bulletin board, which I scanned while I waited for my interview, advertising why the congregation’s commitment to human rights included fighting for gay marriage. A huge emphasis was placed on Biblical passages that advocated a love of one’s neighbour.
The office was your typical, staid, new-management style place, but a lot of the people were certainly convivial and fun. The woman who sat across from me, a rabbi in training (yes, a woman, woo!), spoke casually about the Israeli settlers in the West Bank as being “crazy.” The office’s executive accountant was a Hispanic woman, and I was hardly the only other minority there, the inclusiveness felt real. Indeed, at every turn this congregation sought to challenge my very conception of religion. I found myself asking: Could this be our future?
Indeed it can.
But doesn’t the school’s very focus contradict what I said in my last article? Not exactly. Here’s the rub, and the compromise (which we surely need). A lot of the children attended integrated, non-sectarian public and private schools. The Hebrew School was an extracurricular. Indeed, the name is very literal. The primary focus of the school is to teach the Hebrew language along with a few cultural traditions. The instruction is not intended to be explicitly religious. Although the parents do, regrettably, talk about raising their children Jewish and so forth, it was still a very encouraging thing that the Congregation was doing.
Indeed, it is far more likely that a lot of these children will grow up and be Jewish only in a cultural sense and not be overly devout (but pray they are less arrogant than their parents, please). They will, from a young age, have already been exposed to other cultures and ways of life. The solution presented by the B’nai Jeshurun School is not a perfect one, but it serves a brilliant example of a halfway house that can moderate religious faith into something that remains beautiful and cannot be perverted. The preservation of culture is paramount, and such schools are an excellent way to do so.
But you don’t need religion to keep the culture either.
Gotta Have Reason
What B’nai Jeshurun and other similar liberal groups (in any faith) do is pick and choose what speaks to them from their holy books. At the head of this article you saw that I, from the midst of the hellish and vindictive Old Testament, plucked a flower of reason, after all. The rabbis of the congregation did the same, and are outright ignoring the minimal but clearly existent injunctions against homosexuality in the Old Testament. On what basis did they choose to do so?
This is where we come to a very important issue with solving religion: Knowing where our morality comes from.
When a liberal or moderate (or even sensible conservative) Christian group picks and chooses from the Bible they are clearly not *basing* their morality on the Bible. The Bible is chaotic, inconsistent, and written in countless hands- it makes sense to look at it as a toolbox rather than a single, irreducible entity. But *how* do you come to that conclusion? Obviously our morality, even the morality of those who call themselves religious, does not spring from the “Good Book.” The criteria by which we judge the Bible is independent of it.
There is indeed a ‘milk o’ human kindness,’ as Shakespeare would have it. There are, of course, flashes of it in the Holy Bible, many of them in red text. Look at the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus was light years ahead of his time and much of what he preached then would be a firm basis for liberal morality in 2007. Where does it come from? The answer is far more inspiring than religion would have it.
It really does come from you and I. Our conscience, our guilt, our compassion.
As I was walking up to my front door this afternoon I caused some cats hiding behind a bush to scatter. It was a mother and her four kittens, all homeless as the cats in my neighbourhood are. She waited for each of her kittens to round the corner and stood staring at me, ready to pounce at a moments notice if I tried to attack. I didn’t, of course. I smiled as I saw the feline family and thought of the mother protecting her little kittens from big ol’ me. I felt all gooey and silently wished them well.
God didn’t do that, nor did what I’ve read of the Bible. We all feel those flashes of compassion, emotion, and sympathy. It *is* innate. What matters is if we allow the world to beat it out of us or not, and given how cynically religion has been used, I do sincerely doubt its power as a shield from even that. If anything, radical religion debases the goodness of the human spirit.
Our sacred compass, that which guides our morality, is often rigged by religion to only point one way, no matter where you are. A real compass’ needle always points to the North, but it most definitely turns on its axis and follows the true north. That is Human morality. It is flexible, understanding, and a morality that compels us to judge each situation clearly and on its own merits. Wisdom seeks Her witty inventions in all things, she does not judge from the outset and act. Wisdom unsticks the needle of our sacred compass so that it can do its job once more.
“Believe in God, not Man!”
Is all of this to say that Humans are so great that we only need ourselves? That if only we all did what I said the world would be perfect because we’re just that awesome? Absolutely not. As a collective we are still pretty fucked up and likely always will be- hey, at least I’m honest! The reality is not about placing your *faith* in Humanity, it’s about trusting yourself to reason things out without the narrow spyglass of someone else’s mythology. For all the evil we as Humans do, there is much good as well, and in broadening our perspective we must all see where it comes from.
Belief in religion is not needed for morality, and if anything a morality divorced from religion is a much more pure and fulfilling one. We all need guidance, of course. I get plenty from people I trust, as I’m sure many of you do. Those people would still be there to help me in their infinite kindness and patience whether the Catholic Church or Islam existed or not. My tirades against the organised and established religions of the world- the religions that abjure condoms or burn embassies because of Danish cartoons- are not an appeal to put a religious faith in Humanity. That just shifts the problem of misguided absolutism. But where a little faith wouldn’t hurt is faith in the goodness that resides in us all, and surely there are many religious thinkers that would not disagree with me there. Martin Luther King certainly wouldn’t; in his treatise on loving one’s enemies he goes to great pains to suggest that the battle of good and evil takes place in each of us, rather than on some grand battlefield in the ‘real world.’
This is nearer to the truth of all things. What good there is in the world is in us all, and what evil there is also resides in us. Humanity is certainly nothing to worship. Yet we find people in this life to love anyway- does that not mean something?
A collective understanding of that would decrease the value of religion further. Too often the choice is posited between Man and God, but I would contend it’s not that simple. For one thing, there are women. Secondly, what about worshipping nothing at all in particular? There’s a lot that is good out there.
Perhaps an important personal first step in leaving religion behind is realising you want to go find that good. Follow your compass.